Replies

That's right -- you did call Rosa Parks a myth.

Help me here.. She was an activist for the NAACP, and she refused to move to the back of the bus when ordered to do so during a time when black-skinned people were treated as second class citizens. Where's the myth part come in?

And, if the whole thing was a "set-up", then do you think the white guy ordering her to move was a MYTH, too?

Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO:

IN THE TRADITION OF PAUL WELLSTONE'S FUNERAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Here's some of Al Sharpton at Rosa Parks's funeral: I heard somebody say Jim Crow is who she fought and Jim Crow is still around. But Jim Crow is old. That's not who I'm mindful of today. The problem is Jim Crow has sons. Cheers.

One we gotta battle is James Crow Jr. Esq. He's a little more educated. He's a little slicker. He's a little more polished. But the results are the same. He doesn't put you in the back of the bus. He just puts referendums on the ballot to end affirmative action when you can't go to school. He doesn't call you a racial name, he just marginalizes your existence. He doesn't tell you that he's set against you, he sets up institutional racism. Where you have a nation respond looking for weapons in Iraq that are not there but can't see a hurricane in Louisiana that is there. Cheers. James Crow Jr. Esquire, that's who we gotta fight.

Jim Crow was no myth. And Ward Connerly is as right-on as can be about freedom in America; despite Al Sharpton's inability to get any if not most facts straight. About many things. Al prefers myths, I can only presume.

Ward Connerly refuses to move to the back of the bus when race hustlers like Al Sharpton demand it of him.

Ward is most definitely a hero of mine.

That's right -- you did call Rosa Parks a myth. Help me here.. She was an activist for the NAACP, and she refused to move to the back of the bus when ordered to do so during a time when black-skinned people were treated as second class citizens. Where's the myth part come in?

It is a myth that Rosa Parks was THE one who stood up to Jim Crow. Many others did before her in the same year who get no recognition.

It is a myth that Rosa Parks sparked the bus boycott. The bus boycott was prearranged waiting for a test case. The trigger was almost pulled in the case of Claudette Colvin. But she and several other 'lower class' Negroes were left to twist in the wind because they weren't the 'right kind' of Negro.

It is a myth that Rosa Parks and the bus boycott overturned segregated bus seating. The other women got together after the bus boycott began and got segregated seating laws declared unconstitutional in Browder v Gayle.

It is a myth that Rosa Parks was a simple seamstress who spontaneously stood up alone to discrimination on December 1, 1955, and around whom a movement spontaneous sprang up. She was a long-time activist, a secretary for the NAACP, who had in fact advised Claudette Colvin earlier that year while Colvin's case of failure to yield a seat to a White was being considered and was part of the boycott planning before December 1, 1955.

It is a myth that Rosa Parks changed anything. The prime mover behind Parks and the boycott was E.D. Nixon. Parks was simply selected to front the movement, which was able to be implemented quickly because Parks was already on the inside and known to the boycott organizers as the right kind of Negro who could appeal to Whites because she wasn't 'too black' and she had nothing in her background to offend the Black churches. It is noteworthy that none of the 'ordinary' Negroes who did stand alone against racism were found suitable to the boycott planners for challenging the system.

It is not an issue that Rosa Parks did what she did on Dec. 1, 1955 or that it was in some degree courageous or that it was the right thing to do or that it was an important part of the movement to end discrimination and abuse or that it is worth noting on her passing. But she was neither singular nor nor a giant in the civil rights movement. She was selected as a posterchild and a symbol, nothing more.

Myths die hard, don't they?